Lottery games have become a time-honored method of raising revenue for state and federal governments the world over. Traditional scratch-off and on-line games have evolved over decades, supplying increasing revenue year after year. However, after decades of growth, the sales curves associated with traditional games seem to be flattening out with the existing retailer base appearing to plateau. Consequently, both lotteries and their service providers are presently searching for new sales venues.
One of the most promising genera of new lottery retailers are “big box” retailers (e.g., Walmart, Target, etc.) and drug store retailers (e.g., Rite Aid, CVS, etc.). However, attempts by lotteries and their service providers to recruit these new retailers have not succeeded. The main reasons for the lack of success is that lottery products are too labor intensive and require special equipment. Additionally, aside from the added cost of the special equipment, its placement may require big box and drug store retailers to have a separate lottery sales/redemption location possibly requiring extra staff. Additionally, in some venues it is desirable to use street vendors to sell lottery tickets that have not been able to use conventional lottery equipment and systems to provide the needed security for specialized lottery products.
To date, there have been numerous attempts to resolve this barrier to sales in big box and drug stores with special in-lane hardware (e.g., Herndon et. al. US2009/0163263, etc.) as well as special monitor interfaces to existing Point Of Sale (POS) systems (e.g., Behm et. al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,899,621), however all of these systems have required the addition of special scanning or dispensing hardware that consequently incur significant costs.
Recently, the popularity of prepaid gift and debit cards (referred to generically herein as “gift debit cards”) sold at big box and drug store retailers has resulted in the implementation of barcode reading activation systems tightly integrated with the stores' POS (Point Of Sale) systems. Indeed, the $20 billion projected sales of open loop gift debit cards for 201 have resulted in the vast majority of big box and drug stores integrating gift/debit card activation systems into their POS systems. This mass adoption of gift debit card activation systems allows for other products with barcodes and data conforming to the same specifications as the gift card items to be activated, tracked, or validated without the need to add any additional hardware at the retailer location. Additionally, since gift/debit card activation systems are already integrated into the stores' POS systems, there is no need to have a separate location or additional staff to handle any additional products piggybacking on the gift debit card activation system.
This preponderance of existing gift debit card activation systems at big box and drug store POS systems creates the perfect foundation for lottery and contest systems to utilize the existing card activation network to pass lottery/contest data between the retailer POS and a central site database. By complying with the format of the gift card activation system, blobs of lottery or contest data can be interchanged between the retailer's POS and a central hub allowing transactions (e.g., instant sales, instant validation, instant inventory, quick pick bets, Power Ball validations, etc.) to be conducted without any custom hardware.
Of course, the above data blob exchange utilizing the existing gift card system can be applied to transactions other than lotteries and contests. In such an embodiment, the non-gift-card transactional data would also be encapsulated into a gift card activation network interchange. For example, driver's license data can be encapsulated into a gift card activation barcode format enabling it to be scanned and compared against a central database for authentication beyond a visual inspection of the license.
The concept of no or little customized hardware at the POS location can be extended to a portable retailer or street vendor. In this embodiment, off-the-shelf smart telephones can be incorporated as barcode scanners and the retailer interface, with a portable printer providing the necessary receipts and tickets. Indeed, with portable retailers or street vendors, the gift card network can be used to activate traditional plastic open loop debit cards that can be loaded with lottery or contest prize winnings at the time a winning ticket is presented to the street vendor. With this embodiment, the street vendor or portable retailer is no longer required to carry sufficient cash to pay winners, thereby helping to protect the vendor from theft and violent crime. Additionally, the smart telephone camera can be used to process an image of a debit or credit card with built-in Optical Character Recognition (OCR) allowing the street vendor to perform sales without accepting cash.
Therefore, it is desirable to develop methodologies for performing lottery and other transactions at the retailer POS requiring no special hardware.
Described herein are a number of mechanisms illustrating the practical advantages of as well as the details of reliably utilizing existing interchanges to eliminate the logistical need for any custom hardware at a retailer POS. The disclosed mechanisms thereby offering substantial savings (in eliminating hardware costs and maintenance) while at the same time reducing the clutter on retailer's counters as well as simplifying the retailer interface.